The Business Software Alliance (BSA) has a long history of being on the wrong side of history. It does little to actually help the software business, but instead, it tries to be the RIAA of the software business by looking to promote innovation-destroying policies to prop up the obsolete business models of a few giant companies; for example, its yearly joke of a report about “losses” to the industry from infringement. It’s such a joke that the research firm that conducted the research, IDC, admitted that the BSA was deliberately misinterpreting its findings (and yet, IDC continues to do the same report every year for the BSA). The BSA has also misrepresented ACTA, argued against open standards and (most famously) has long been noted for its questionable “raids” on companies, where if you can’t find the receipt for every copy of Microsoft Office, they claim you infringed.

The BSA’s latest move is — once again relying on its own bogus stats — to suggest that Europe and other parts of the world need to import the horrible “statutory damages” for copyright concept that the US uses, effectively ratcheting up the punishment for infringement without ever having to show actual damages.

As the European Union considers changes to its intellectual property rules, it needs to make sure that higher damage payments deter pirates, who often benefit because of insufficient fines, said Warren Weertman, manager of legal affairs for Washington-based Business Software Alliance….

“Lump sum damages would act more as a deterrent than having two actuaries fight it out in a costly court case,” Weertman said in a phone interview from London. “It’s a vicious circle where the damages aren’t deterrent enough.”

Of course, this is ridiculous for a few different reasons. First off, the BSA is (as noted above) famous for concocting ridiculously bogus calculations of “damages” from infringement. And here, suddenly, they’re afraid to bring those stats into court to prove actual damages? Seems like the BSA is basically admitting that it knows its own numbers are complete bunk.

Second, and more importantly, Weertman seems to have fallen sway to the total myth that greater enforcement stops infringement. This has been debunked so many times, it’s not even funny. When even the death penalty doesn’t deter infringement, you would think that people would start to realize that ratcheting up enforcement isn’t the answer. Earlier this year, we pointed to the massive, incredibly thorough SSRC report on media piracy which presented tremendous amounts of evidence that greater enforcement does not slow down infringement.

If anything, greater enforcement and ridiculously high statutory awards for infringement do the exact opposite of what the BSA thinks it’s supporting. That is, when people hear about crazy amounts of money owed for sharing just a few infringing files, it doesn’t make them respect copyright law more. It makes them think that the numbers are so out of touch with reality, that copyright law itself is a joke. It makes people respect the law even less. And yet here are the clueless BSA execs thinking it’s a smart strategy.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story





&partnerID=167&key=segment"/>